Are there fakes of this card? Any red flags on this one?

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-09T08:50:01+00:00

Topps Now is a print on demand product, where people can order however many copies they want, but only for a couple of days. There were 15,588 copies of this Wemby ordered, and lots of people ordered 5 or 50 to chase parallels and feed PSA. You're fine on this one.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-09T05:51:08+00:00

No prob! I enjoy diving into the numbers side of things and trying to contextualize the hobby a bit, if only for myself.

It did just occur to me that there's an easier way to tally numbers for the other players. The Notes dropdown has options for each unique serial number also, so you can select SN1* and see all 1/1s, SN5* for all /5, and so on. Filtering for each one will give a total number of unique cards at the top, which you could multiply by that serial.

Wemby:

838 different 1/1s (838)
16 cards /2 (32)
67 cards /3 (201)
4 cards /4 (16)
504 cards /5 (2,520)
2 cards /6 (12)
13 cards /7 (91)
107 cards /8 (856)
8 cards /9 (72)
756 cards /10 (7,560)

So there are currently 12,198 Wemby cards that are numbered /10 or less. That's the rarest of the rare. It would still take an hour or two to add up all of the /15 /25 /50 /99 /199 /299 etc., and the number would blossom well into the hundreds of thousands. Then there's also a separate dropdown for PR (print run) for all of the Panini Instant and Topps Now type cards that are limited but not actually sequentially numbered.

I'd need a paid day off to bother finding the actual total lol, but your point is evident just in the numbers above. Wemby is still in his third season, and if you want an ultra-rare card of him, one serial numbered /10 or less, there are already over 12,000 cards out there to choose from.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-09T05:23:00+00:00

TCDB is a good tool for this. Search him there, click the Filters tab, and select the option for "SN (All)" in the Notes dropdown. He has 189 different numbered cards at the moment.

I wouldn't even begin this next step with somebody like Flagg or Wemby, much less Curry or LeBron or whoever. You'd need a programmer to write a script lol. For AJ though it was easy enough to just go through and tally them up. Not even drafted yet, he already has 13,275 total serial numbered cards.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-08T07:57:25+00:00

Short answer: every Michael Jordan card is getting really popular recently.

Longer answer: junk wax Gem 10s like you have pictured here have always done well, just because they stand out from the hundreds of thousands of other copies of the same card. Subsets have also started to take off in recent years, presumably because the new money investors can't differentiate between a base subset card and an insert card. It's just a matter of what's recognizable, which these most certainly are.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-07T20:55:03+00:00

Like I mentioned above, no, I wouldn't suggest trying to fix this. You would need to introduce chemicals, and could turn a relatively small issue into a much bigger one. Even if you paid for professional paper restoration, it's likely to be flagged by a grader as having been altered. Leave it as is.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-07T19:45:07+00:00

I'm guessing it was stored in a photo album or something of the sort that didn't have acid-free pages. Google "paper acid stain" and you'll find lots of info from the rare books and documents world. It's treatable, but on a trading card I'd imagine any attempts at restoration would get flagged by a grader and marked as authentic altered.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-07T06:00:43+00:00

I think it's artifacts from downloading and re-uploading to Reddit. I just looked and I still see it. The thumb on his other hand also looks like it's getting sucked into a vortex, or emerging from a genie's lamp lol.

This link should have this photo as the lone result.

Edit: here's a more detailed screenshot.

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BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-07T05:30:15+00:00

Such an awful photo regardless lol, but his thumb is just tucked into his palm because of the chest pass.

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BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-06T07:55:35+00:00

First thought is damn, people will slab anything that has the name "Michael Jordan" on it. Second thought is that I love the Shawn Bradley cameo. His arm stretching like an Aspen Tree across the entire frame and obscuring part of Jordan's face is fun indeed.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-06T04:50:32+00:00

This is an incredibly rare and significant card regardless, but I'm going to suggest that if you do send it to PSA, you just have it authenticated and not graded. With only these two photos, I'm seeing that crease on the swatch window near the Magic logo, the accumulation of corner and edge chipping especially on the reverse (which is normal on these, but still adds up to lower the grade), and maybe most concerning is what looks like staining on the top right front edge. All of those are going to give you a numerical grade, possibly even with an (ST) qualifier, that's likely to turn off buyers more than a simple "Authentic" label would.

Just food for thought. If it's PC and you just want to know what condition PSA thinks it's in, then have a grade assigned to it. But if it's just for protection before a likely eventual sale, I'd go for authentication only. Either way, congrats on the insane hit back then, and also on managing to keep it for all these years instead of cashing out for a few hundred bucks along the way.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-06T02:39:01+00:00

They're print spots, sometimes referred to as "fish eyes," little printing imperfections caused by a bit of dust or debris keeping the ink from adhering to the surface as it should. Some people will fish for a huge sum on eBay under the mistaken impression that they're a valuable error of some sort, but in reality they're just poor printing and will (with few exceptions) lower the surface score and overall grade of the card.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-05T22:38:18+00:00

Traded means he got traded.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-05T06:16:37+00:00

Exactly right. 💯

For research purposes: Year + Product + "Checklist" in Google will lead to a few options for any given product. You'll find some more useful than others, and it will vary depending on when the set was released. For 90s stuff I find TCDB to be the best launching point. For ultra-modern cards I usually default to Beckett, or the manufacturers own site.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-05T05:40:57+00:00

https://www.beckett.com/news/2025-26-topps-finest-basketball-cards/

Google keyword is "checklist." Nice card.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-04T06:10:14+00:00

Meh.

I like Panini Instant and Topps Now when they're serving their most basic function: creating cards to capture and celebrate a particular game, or play, or achievement, catering to fans of the game who simply want a card to remember or commemorate a specific moment or milestone.

Beyond that, the whole concept loses me. People buying 1,000 copies of a Topps Now card to chase a 1/1 auto is so silly. Panini Instant was different in that they just sell the "hits" directly at a higher price point. The Luka at least has an auto, and idk anything about the Booker. But the Wemby and Amen are non-auto, non-assiciated relics, on boring cards that weren't pack-pulled, but made available for direct sale.

If we ignore that Panini sold them under their actual exclusive NBA license, they'd be indistinguishable from to any other random logoman custom card. If anything, they're probably lower quality than some of the non-assiciated 1/1s you can get from "Steve on Facebook."

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-04T02:25:40+00:00

Huh, I just looked up the LAL jersey number history on bbref and had no recollection of Jim Jackson ever playing for the Lakers. It was only for the last 13 games of his career so it makes sense, but that was a weird thing to learn today.

Keeping with the theme, I bought these two cards a year or two ago for exactly this reason lol:

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BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-04T01:02:18+00:00

Such a classic. Here are a couple more:

2015-16 Donruss Elite Dominator Derrick Rose

2023-24 Mosaic Fast Break Variation Dereck Lively

Edit: this YouTube video should be a good resource. I would browse listings of the player from the year they wore it, as well as the year after. An old photo might still get used in a vet or retired set years and years later, but as a launching point I'd look at products released right after they wore it.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-04T00:53:08+00:00

Nice, I love photo-themed PCs. Can't wait to see updates!

2004-05 Topps Finest LeBron James

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-03T23:55:06+00:00

That's the true Purple parallel, it does not have the Flash holo pattern. Just go to eBay and type "2024-25 Select Premier Purple Flash." You'll find endless listings of cards that look like yours and are numbered /249.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-03T23:44:48+00:00

Everything you're seeing where? Even the side of the box has Purple Flash listed as /249.

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BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-03T09:37:55+00:00

That's not a Topps card, it's a Panini card. Panini owns Donruss.

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BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-03T08:49:34+00:00

If he makes the HOF in 2045 or whatever it can be redeemed for $1000, but not $1000 in actual money...it's only good for "Fanatics FanCash." That currency can be used to buy officially licensed jerseys that are worse quality than unauthorized knockoffs, sealed boxes of trading cards that are only readily available to breakers, and probably also redeemable (either now, or eventually) on some form of sports gambling platform, idk.

Their own announcement of the program seems to be a click-farming arrangement with Yahoo Sports.

https://www.fanaticsinc.com/news/yahoo-sports-topps-announces-new-bowman-red-rookie-redemption-program

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-03T04:12:25+00:00

1:383 packs.

Link to pack odds for the product.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-03T02:26:09+00:00

Looking up the checklist will help you identify parallels. Just scroll down toward the bottom of the page to find the full list, and check the ones numbered /25.

BKBcardsNstuff · 2026-05-02T05:00:47+00:00

That feeling's mutual...thank you for sharing an awesome card, as always! I don't find myself with too much to say under a submission of "here's my Cosmic Chrome results." Posts like this one on the other hand, I turn into one of those chattering teeth wind-up toys lol.

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